Lashing Out

I've been having a hard time blogging about the first few battles of the war chapters mostly because the motivation behind their fights were so ludicrous. After killing a thousand of the Anti-Nephi-Lehies for daring to change their beliefs, many of the remaining Lamanites, led by dissented Nephites, went on to attack a group of Nephites who had nothing to do with the Anti-Nephi-Lehies' conversion.

I'm honestly having a hard time understanding why they would do that. The Nephites had defeated the Lamanites repeatedly in battle, so much so that some Lamanites even converted to theism because they were convinced that some higher power was aiding the Nephites (and they were right). Meanwhile, the Anti-Nephi-Lehies, with whom the Lamanites were actually mad, weren't even trying to defend themselves. When the Lamanites came upon them, they just knelt down and prayed, and died in the act of praying.

Now, it could be that the Lamanites were trying to address the "problem" of the Anti-Nephi-Lehies' conversion by going to the source: the Nephites. This makes a certain amount of sense, but if they really wanted to get back at the Nephites who had converted their brotheren, the should have gone after the actual Nephite missionaries, Ammon and his friends. Those missionaries were too few to defend themselves, and the only people who possibly could have protected them had buried their swords and knelt on the ground as their enemies were approaching. Not exactly the world's most effective bodyguards.

It may be that we readers know more about the situation than the Lamanites did. Maybe they didn't know that the Nephite missionaries were still hanging out with the Anti-Nephi-Lehies at that time, so they thought that attacking the Nephites was the only way to get back at the Nephite Missionaries. Or, maybe this apparently senseless act of lashing out actually had a reasonable motive behind it, and motive of which the record keeper didn't know. It's theoretically possibly that attacking the heavily armed and divinely favored Nephites was in some way preferably than continuing to slaughter the Anti-Nephi-Lehies, who were almost literally "sitting ducks."

However, from what information we have, it looks like the Lamanites were simply lashing out in their anger at people who weren't really at fault. This is a rather pointless endeavour, and we should try not to make the same mistake. When we feel upset, there's a temptation to lash out at whomever's convenient, but doing so won't get us anywhere. Lashing out in anger is never the solution to life's problems. So, even if the conversion of the Anti-Nephi-Lehies was somehow a problem for the Lamanites, their decision to attack the Nephites in vengeance for it was completely ridiculous. Though, I should probably be careful when throwing around insults like that. Lashing out in anger may be completely pointless, but I shouldn't be too hard on them for falling victim to human nature.

There are plenty of more protective ways for a person to channel or vent their negative emotions. As with most things, violence is not the answer, especially when the violence is directed at a randomly-selected target. If a group or individual does something that upsets you, attacking them isn't usually the best course of action, and attacking a different group or individual is even less likely to be a good idea. Most problems have a more logical and practical solution than that. We just need to keep calm enough to think clearly enough to find it.